One dark night outside Mundare, a small town East of Edmonton, Alberta, a fire started inside the local sausage plant and in a blink it exploded into massive flames. The alarm went out to all the fire departments from miles around. When the local volunteer fire fighters appeared on the scene, the sausage company president rushed to the fire chief and said, "All of our secret formulas are in the vault in the center of the plant. They must be saved and I will give $50,000 to the fire department that brings them out intact." But the roaring flames held the firefighters off.

Soon more fire departments from surrounding towns had to be called in as the situation became desperate. As the firemen arrived, the president shouted out that the offer was now $100,000 to the fire department who could bring out the company's secret files. Then, from a distance, a lone siren was heard as one more fire truck came into sight. It was the nearby Smoky Lake rural township volunteer fire department composed mainly of Ukrainians over the age of 65. To everyone's amazement, the little run-down fire engine, operated by these Ukrainians, passed all the newer sleek engines parked outside the plant and drove straight into the middle of the inferno.

Outside, the other firemen watched as the Ukrainian old timers jumped off and began to fight the fire from the inside with a performance and effort never seen before. Within a short time, the Smoky Lake old-timers had extinguished the fire and saved the secret formulas.

The grateful sausage company president joyfully announced that for such a superhuman feat he was upping the reward to $200,000, and walked over to personally thank each of the brave, though elderly, Ukrainian firefighters. The Edmonton TV news reporters rushed in after capturing the event on film, asking, "What are you going to do with all that money?" " Vell," said Nick Sputski, the 70-year-old fire chief, "da furst thing vee gonna do is fix da brakes on dat ****ing trock."